“Where were you then?Who else was there?Saying what?Why will the whole of love come on me suddenlywhen I am sad and feel you are far away?”

“Amor"So many days, oh so many daysseeing you so tangible and so close,how do I pay, with what do I pay?The bloodthirsty springhas awakened in the woods.The foxes start from their earths,the serpents drink the dew,and I go with you in the leavesbetween the pines and the silence,asking myself how and whenI will have to pay for my luck.Of everything I have seen,it's you I want to go on seeing:of everything I've touched,it's your flesh I want to go on touching.I love your orange laughter.I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.What am I to do, love, loved one?I don't know how others loveor how people loved in the past.I live, watching you, loving you.Being in love is my nature.You please me more each afternoon.Where is she? I keep on askingif your eyes disappear.How long she's taking! I think, and I'm hurt.I feel poor, foolish and sad,and you arrive and you are lightningglancing off the peach trees.That's why I love you and yet not why.There are so many reasons, and yet so few,for love has to be so,involving and general,particular and terrifying,joyful and grieving,flowering like the stars,and measureless as a kiss.That's why I love you and yet not why.There are so many reasons, and yet so few,for love has to be so,involving and general,particular and terrifying,joyful and grieving,flowering like the stars,and measureless as a kiss.”

“Sonnet LXXXI And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream. Love and pain and work should all sleep, now. The night turns on its invisible wheels, and you are pure beside me as a sleeping ember. No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go, we will go together, over the waters of time. No one else will travel through the shadows with me, only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon. Your hands have already opened their delicate fists and let their soft drifting signs drop away; your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move after, following the folding water you carry, that carries me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny. Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.”

“While I'm writing, I'm far away;and when I come back, I've gone.”

“I am not jealousof what came before me.Come with a manon your shoulders,come with a hundred men in your hair,come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,come like a riverfull of drowned menwhich flows down to the wild sea,to the eternal surf, to Time!Bring them allto where I am waiting for you;we shall always be alone,we shall always be you and Ialone on earth,to start our life!”

“Of everything I have seen, it's you I want to go on seeing: of everything I've touched, it's your flesh I want to go on touching. I love your orange laughter. I am moved by the sight of you sleeping. What am I to do, love, loved one? I don't know how others love or how people loved in the past. I live, watching you, loving you. Being in love is my nature.”

“I want you to knowone thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.”